Federalism and Fiscal Responsibility: A Lesson in Civics Education

About the Authors

In the wake of the
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the wave of patriotism
that has fol­lowed, there has been renewed concern about the
state of civics education, citizen formation, and national
character in the United States. Yet accord­ing to the most
recent National Assessment of Edu­cational Progress test in
civics, only 24 percent of high school seniors were "proficient" in
their knowledge of American government and civics.[1] Study
after study since then continues to suggest that historical
literacy is at a similarly abysmal level. Apprehension about
declining civic knowledge and a desire to address the growing
problem, however, should not obscure the principles of our civic
order or lead Congress to ignore its own standards and policy
responsibilities.

As part of a larger effort
to control the growth of federal government spending, President
George W. Bush's budget proposal for fiscal year (FY) 2006
rec­ommends that the Center for Civic Education (CCE) receive
no federal funds.[2] The very civic principles at the
core of the American Constitution and responsi­ble budgetary
management dictate that Congress should approve the
Administration's request by not restoring federal funding for the
CCE.

The
Center for Civic Education

In addition to several
programs run directly by federal agencies, such as the Department
of Educa­tion's Teaching American History grants and the
National Endowment for the Humanities' "We the People" program,
Congress allocates money to private nonprofit organizations that
seek to assist American students in becoming good
citizens.

The largest and longest
existing direct grant for this purpose is awarded to the Center for
Civic Education, a California-based nonparti­san group that
seeks "to promote an enlight­ened and responsible citizenry
committed to democratic principles and actively engaged in the
practice of democracy in the United States and other countries."[3] The CCE pursues this mission
with a dedication "to fostering the development of informed,
responsible partici­pation in civic life by citizens committed
to val­ues and principles fundamental to American
constitutional democracy."[4]

Founded in 1964 as the
Committee on Civic Education at the University of California, Los
Angeles, the CCE's flagship program is called "We the People: The
Citizen and the Constitu­tion" and features a textbook for high
school stu­dents, who participate in a nationwide competition
to demonstrate their knowledge of the curriculum. Since 1981, when
it became an independent non­profit organization, the CCE has
continued to pub­lish a wide array of curriculum materials for
primary and secondary civics education.

The CCE first received a
noncompetitive earmark from the federal government in 1987 under
the aus­pices of the Commission on the Bicentennial of the
United States Constitution. By 1998, the CCE was receiving $8.3
million from the federal government. For FY 2005, it received
approximately $29.4 mil­lion from the federal government.
Federal funding directed to the CCE between 1998 and 2005 increased
by 254 percent, with the most dramatic growth occurring since
2001.[5] (See Chart 1.)

Civics
Education: Vital for a
Strong Democracy

The American Founders
understood that self-government requires civics and history
education. As President George Washington stated in his First
Annual Message to Congress:

To the security of a free
constitution [knowledge] contributes in various ways…by
teaching the people themselves to know, and to value their own
rights; to discern and provide against invasions of them; to
distinguish between oppression and the necessary exercise of lawful
authority; between burthens proceeding from a disregard to their
convenience, and those resulting from the inevitable exigencies of
society; to discriminate the spirit of liberty from that of
licentiousness-cherishing the first, avoiding the last; and uniting
a speedy, but temperate vigilance against encroach-ments, with an
inviolable respect to the laws.[6]

Future citizens must not
only know that legiti­mate government is grounded in the
protection of equal natural rights and the consent of the
gov­erned, but also understand and appreciate how the
Constitution and our institutions of limited gov­ernment work
to protect liberty and the rule of law.

Civics education at its
best should inculcate in students a keen knowledge of and profound
respect for the principles of the Declaration of Independence and
the United States Constitution. In a self-governing republic, one
of the most responsible and indispensable missions of
schools-public, private, and home-based-is educating young people
about their rights and responsibilities as American
citizens.

The
Right Decision

Despite the vital
importance of civics education for free government, the President's
request to eliminate federal funding for the CCE is the right
decision.

The debate that has
erupted over CCE funding provides what a civics instructor might
call a "teachable moment," offering Congress an opportunity to
recognize the important place of civics education in our daily
lives while still abiding by the Constitution that is the core of
our national civitas.

Although the CCE attempts
to demonstrate the effectiveness of its programs by citing
research, Con­gress cannot ignore that the Department of
Educa­tion justifies eliminating CCE funding as "consistent
with the Administration's policy of terminating small categorical
programs that have limited impact, and for which there is little or
no evidence of effective­ness, to fund higher priority
programs."[7]

The Administration's
decision is consistent with a principled understanding of the
nature and pur­pose of American civics education. In addition
to the general lack of effectiveness after almost 20 years of
federal funding, Congress should consider three other factors that
underscore this conclusion: (1) the corrupting nature of
noncompetitive grants and federal funding, (2) the CCE's expanding
mis­sion and lack of focus, and (3) the constitutional
requirements of federalism.

The
Trouble with Earmarks

The CCE is almost entirely
dependent upon fed­eral funding, relying on the federal
government for more than 95 percent of its income. While most
nonprofit organizations devote a certain percentage of their income
to fundraising, the CCE spends nothing on fundraising, but instead
hires lobbyists to ensure that its annual earmark is renewed.[8] Therein lies the larger problem
of noncompetitive federal grants. Guaranteed income from a single
source brings dependence on that one source, especially for a
nonprofit institution. With only one major source of income, CCE's
institutional inde­pendence is undermined.

At the same time, an
organization that does not have to compete annually with others for
funding can more easily lose sight of its mission or perform
inadequately without suffering the consequences. Giving a single
organization a virtual lock on an annual earmark is a disservice
both to the organiza­tion and to the larger goals for which the
appropria­tion is made.

Although the CCE would be
reluctant to admit it, CCE's almost complete dependence on revenue
from the federal government and the federal gov­ernment's grant
of monopoly status to the CCE[9] have affected the
organization's mission priorities.

Ending the CCE earmark
would have the benefit of forcing the CCE to compete for other
funding sources, something every university and college takes for
granted, not to mention the many national civics education groups
that cannot rely upon a federal earmark for their funding. For
example, the Department of Education reports that one such group,
the Close Up Foundation, does not need its $1.5 million annual
earmark because of its "suc­cessful private fundraising."[10]

For many years, the CCE
could claim to be the only organization that provided materials and
programs for civics education. This is no longer the case. Civics
education activity has flourished in recent years, and today many
private groups provide extensive materi­als and rigorous
programs in civics education.

Mission
Confusion

For decades, the
cornerstone of the CCE's out­reach to American students has
been its "We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution"
curricu­lum and competition. While the CCE curriculum is by no
means perfect-for instance, a sense of his­toricism about the
natural rights basis of the Amer­ican Founding pervades its
later sections[11]-it provides a good program for
civics education.

However, in recent years,
the CCE has moved beyond its core mission and curriculum. The
addi­tion of several new programs marks an important shift away
from civics education as knowledge toward civics as an
activity.

The CCE's program for
middle school students, "We the People: Project Citizen," requires
students to choose a public policy problem in their commu­nity
and propose a solution to it. The methodology of the project
suggests to students that governmen­tal action is the default
solution to community problems-a danger that is inadequately
addressed in the curriculum.[12] The project
promises to enhance students' "tolerance" and "feelings of
polit­ical efficacy" rather than to enhance their concrete
civics knowledge.[13]

In general, a certain
softness pervades many of the CCE's most recent publications-a
softness in which the virtues esteemed by the Founders as requisite
for republican government, such as courage, temper­ance,
wisdom, and justice, are supplanted by more sentimental "values"
like tolerance or political effi­cacy. This approach to
teaching American history is typical of the predominant "social
studies" model in American K-12 education.

The CCE has also recently
migrated into other areas of education far removed from traditional
civ­ics education. The School Violence Prevention Demonstration
Program and Youth for Justice[14] serve important
goals, but these goals are very dif­ferent from those of
traditional civics education. This difference is decisive,
especially when the CCE uses significant federal funding to pay for
its grow­ing array of programs.

The mission, especially in
recent years, has also extended beyond educating young Americans to
include exchange programs and other instruc­tional programs for
teachers and students in developing democracies. Such programs and
con­ferences may offer international teachers and stu­dents
the opportunity to learn more about the United States, but it is
far from evident that the results achieved by the CCE's
international pro­grams (insofar as any of the results can be
accu­rately quantified) merited spending almost $10 million of
federal taxpayer funds on this effort in FY 2004. It is also
questionable whether the CCE's participatory approach is the best
method of civ­ics education for other countries, especially
prior to the establishment of democratic institutions and the rule
of law in those countries.

The diffusion of CCE's
mission is ultimately tied to its easy dependence on the federal
government. To justify continued and expanding federal
fund­ing, the CCE-perhaps because the rigorous incul­cation
of traditional civic knowledge is passé in social studies
circles-seems to have decided that its mission must expand to meet
perceived national circumstances and expectations. In the process,
the CCE has de-emphasized its core mission and focus and moved into
new and more questionable areas.

Constitutional
Responsibility

Fostering an enlightened
appreciation for the fundamentals of free government-the very idea
of civic literacy-is a necessary and noble goal. How­ever,
teaching children to respect the Constitution is difficult if
public policy weakens the structure and ignores the purposes of our
national charter.

An important feature of
our constitutional struc­ture, and thus of civics education, is
the concept of federalism: the decentralized system of governance
that allows political bodies closest to the people to decide
various questions within their own purview of government. Thus, for
example, the U.S. Consti­tution leaves education policymaking
and funding to the states. For most of our history, we have abided
by this important facet of federalism. For example, the federal
Department of Education has existed as a stand-alone agency for
only 25 years. Even the executive director of the CCE has noted
that "the capacity and responsibility to improve civic education
lie at the state and local levels."[15]

Cutting federal funding to
the CCE is a small step in what should be a long process of
reinvigo­rating federalism in education policy, and it might
help to break the cycle of growing federal control over education
policy.[16] At the very least, it would go
a long way toward preventing federal govern­ment control of
America's civics education policy.

It should come as no
surprise that the CCE advo­cates a larger role for the federal
government in civ­ics education. From the CCE's position, a
larger federal role for civics education has meant a larger federal
grant for the CCE.

It is also no coincidence
that the organization's high-profile advocacy of national standards
has fol­lowed the growth of its federal funding. The CCE
intervened in 1995 to help salvage the politicized national history
standards that the Senate had denounced earlier that year in a
historic 99-1 vote. Their own set of voluntary standards, outlined
in Civitas: A Framework for Civic Education, a massive
650-page book, was published to help the federal government and
state governments implement national standards for civics
education.[17]

What started as a mostly
traditional, state-based effort to assist California students in
understanding the Constitution has become a large, federally
funded, and increasingly politicized operation intent on
nationalizing civics standards.

Conclusion

It is interesting to note
that the civic knowledge of young Americans has decreased as
federal involvement in education has markedly increased. In fact,
one might almost say that civic knowledge appears to have declined
in direct proportion to the increase in federal dollars spent on
it. More money for less learning is not a formula for
success.

The solution to the
problems plaguing Amer­ican civics education must go beyond the
status quo. State governments should implement rig­orous
academic programs that improve civics instruction. The revival of
traditional history and civics in K-12 schools should be
encour­aged, as should the many private organizations that are
promoting and assisting in civics educa­tion throughout the
United States. These civics education organizations, including the
CCE, should be free to compete for state dollars to assist those
efforts, but they should not receive direct federal
support.

This outcome would be best
for civics education and for the CCE. Where we have seen successful
edu­cation reform, market dynamics have provided the catalyst.
Civics education should be no exception.

After almost 20 years of
federal government fund­ing, an organization the size and
breadth of the CCE should be able to attract private and state
funding. The federal government should not provide a per­manent
funding stream to such organizations, nor should it use taxpayers'
money to create institutional monopolies over civics education
policy.

Congress should heed the
President's request to end federal funding for the Center for Civic
Edu­cation. Language that authorizes exclusive fund­ing for
the CCE should be removed from federal law at the next
opportunity.[18] Together, Congress and the
President should change course and work to arrest the alarming
growth of federal education policy. These efforts-both small and
large- would in themselves provide a valuable civics les­son
for all Americans.

Matthew Spalding,
Ph.D., is Director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center
for American Studies at The Heritage Foundation. David J. Bobb is
Director of the Hoogland Center for Teacher Excellence at Hillsdale
College. Neither the Heritage Foundation nor Hillsdale College
accepts federal funding.

[1]U.S.
Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics,
"Major Findings from the NAEP 1998 Civics Assess­ment," updated
July 13, 2004, at
nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/civics/findings.asp (May 23,
2005). NAEP scores are reported according to three categories:
basic or "partial mastery," proficient or "solid academic
performance," and advanced or "supe­rior
performance."

[8]According
to its IRS Form 990 figures, the CCE spent $445,601 on lobbying
efforts in FY 1998-FY 2004. For FY 2004, the most recent year for
which public records are available, the CCE spent $143,666 on
lobbyists.

[9]Under
the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), the 670-page
reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Edu­cation Act
of 1965, civics education funding is restricted to the Center for
Civic Education, the National Council for Eco­nomic Education,
and entities promoting democracy overseas. The NCLB thus gives the
CCE a monopoly on federal funding for American civics education.
See No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Sections 2341-2346, at
www.ed.gov/policy/ elsec/leg/esea02/pg31.html#sec2344 (June
15, 2005).

[11]Concurring
with the "living Constitution" philosophy of former Supreme Court
Justice William Brennan, the textbook con­cludes that: "In a
sense, what Justice Brennan said applies to every citizen called on
to make sense of the Constitution-we cannot escape altogether the
context and perspective of our own time." Center for Civic
Education, We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution
(Calabasas, Calif.: Center for Civic Education, 2003), p.
212.

[12]For a
critique of "service learning" methods as they relate to national
service programs, see Matthew Spalding, Ph.D., "Principles and
Reforms for Citizen Service," Heritage Foundation
BackgrounderNo.
1642, April 1, 2003, at
www.heritage.org/Research/Labor/bg1642.cfm.

[13]Statement
by the Center for Civic Education, IRS Form 990, Schedule for Part
III, FY 2002-FY 2003.

[14]Youth
for Justice is an anti-drug program for which the CCE developed its
Foundations of Democracy curriculum, which emphasizes the core
values of justice, privacy, responsibility, and
authority.

[15]Charles
N. Quigley, "The Status of Civic Education: Making the Case for a
National Movement," presentation to the Second Annual Congressional
Conference on Civic Education, December 5, 2004, p. 6, at
www.civiced.org/pdfs/ CongressionalConference2004.pdf (May
23, 2005).

[16]The
recent growth in federal allocations for education has been
considerable. For example, a Department of Education press release
boasts: "Since taking office, President Bush has increased
education funding by $13.8 billion, or 33 percent." The
Administration has requested approximately $56 billion in FY 2006
funding for the Department of Education. This figure does not
include federal spending on education administered through other
departments and agencies. Press release, "Pres­ident's FY 2006
Budget Focuses Resources on Students Who Need Them the Most," U.S.
Department of Education, Febru­ary 7, 2005, at
www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2005/02/02072005.html (June
10, 2005).